Ford, MIT, Stanford Assemble To Solve Autonomous Car Problems

Today Ford announced the equivalent of a superhero team-up for autonomous cars. The huge automaker will be working side-by-side with MIT and Stanford to solve two major problems that still stand in the way of autonomous auto technology.

Today Ford announced an engineering dream team to help the automaker bring the self-driving car closer to fruition. Ford will be working side-by-side with MIT and Stanford University to solve some of the major problems that still stand in the way of autonomous auto technology.

MIT will focus on safety by improving a car's ability to predict the movements of other vehicles and pedestrians' actions. Meanwhile, Stanford will investigate ways for cars to see around obstructions, according to a Ford's press release.

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"Our goal is to provide the vehicle with common sense," said Ford global manager Greg Stevens in the release. "Drivers are good at using the cues around them to predict what will happen next...Our goal in working with MIT and Stanford is to bring a similar type of intuition to the vehicle."

This kind of work is similar to Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications (or V2V) technology, a network of connected cars that feed data to one another, giving cars 360-degree awareness and the ability to evaluate risky situations. Ford's research aims to go a step further by using algorithms to predict the actions of nearby pedestrians and cars and to act accordingly.

Stanford isn't a newcomer to autonomous car research. Besides having an entire program dedicated to advancing automotive technology, the university also participated in the DARPA robotics challenge in 2005, submitting its own autonomous vehicle, Stanley, a tech-outfitted Volkswagen Touareg. That vehicle and DARPA's competition (along with more matured tech) laid some of the groundwork for the current deluge of resources being pumped into autonomous car R&D. MIT also has a storied résumé when it comes to autonomous research. In 2012, MIT showed off its (albeit small) autonomous plane and even developed a robot that'll build your IKEA furniture. Last year, a team from MIT participated in DARPA's robotics challenge. They placed fourth out of 16 participants.

This announcement is part of Ford's "Blueprint of Mobility,"—how Ford envisions the next decade of transportation. "To deliver on our vision for the future of mobility, we need to work with many new partners across the public and private sectors, and we need to start today," Ford chief technical officer Paul Mascarenas said in a statement. "Working with university partners like MIT and Stanford enables us to address some of the longer-term challenges surrounding automated driving while exploring more near-term solutions for delivering an even safer and more efficient driving experience."

With evidence of more minds examining and solving problems facing this self-guided tech, it's more certain, now more than ever, that autonomous cars are coming.